Method of the Study

hair. As for her body, a dark striped dress that reaches her ankle is worn by Phoenix. Along with that dress she wears a long apron that is equal by length with the dress and it is made of bleached sugar sack. On her hand she holds a thin small cane that is made of an umbrella. Her feet wear shoes which are left unlaced until a lady in town laces her shoelaces for her. …with her dead tied red rag,… She carried a thin small cane made from an umbrella,… She wore a dark stripped dress reaching down to her shoe tops, and an equally long apron of bleached sugar sacks, with a full pocket: all neat and tidy,… which dragged from her unlaced shoes Welty, 1994: 142. Moreover the text also gives a description of how Phoenix Jackson walks. It is described very briefly but effectively at the beginning of the story. The description begins with how she walks. Like an old person she walks slowly, but steadily. Another detail in the text directs us to depict that she can’t walk in a straight line. She walks like a balanced pendulum of a standing tall wooden clock which swings periodically from left to right or right to left with a cane in her hand Old Phoenix wobbles ahead. It is just a little look like the pendulum move. Along with the steadiness of her walk, the author also describes how Phoenix uses her cane that is made of an umbrella to help her walk. The movement of Phoenix’s cane that described in detail adds a point to how steady she is walking, as Old Phoenix using the cane. It makes the noise that emits persistent and grave feeling. Despite the fact that the author depicts this steadiness of her walk to this extent, the unlaced shoes of Old Phoenix trample the steadiness as it may trip her from time to time. …she walked slowly…moving a little from side to side in her steps, with the balanced heaviness and lightness of a pendulum in a grand-father clock…with this she kept tapping the frozen earth in front of her. This made a grave and persistent noise in the still air, that seemed meditative like the chirping of a solitary little bird. …but every time she took a step she might have fallen over her shoelaces, which dragged from her unlaced shoes Welty, 1994: 142. Those evidences depict the physical appearance of Phoenix Jackson, how she looks like and how she walks, that shows the characteristics of an elderly person as the author describes her at the beginning of “A Worn Path”. In stark contrast to that, her hair is not white, but black, as if her hair is not consumed by age. In addition the author enriches this description of Phoenix Jackson’s physical appearance through other characters’ expressions toward her. That Phoenix is old is confirmed by a white man, a minor character, who calls her “granny” Welty, 1994: 145. It is important to note that every other character recognizes her as an old lady, as shown from the following quotations, He gave another laugh, filling the whole landscape. “I know you old colored people Wouldn’t miss going to city to see Santa Claus” Welty, 1994: 145. It strengthens the fact that Phoenix has an elderly appearance as the white man said word “old” and then she is a African - American as he said word “colored people”. Those words are presumably to suggest the author’s depiction of Phoenix as an old African - American woman at the beginning of the story. Other than the white man, there is a lady that Old Phoenix meets at sidewalk, an attendant and a nurse at the health center who also call her an “old” lady. “Oh, that’s just old Aunt Phoenix,” she said. “She doesn’t come for herself-she has a little grandson. She makes these trips just as regular as PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI clockwork. She lives away back off the Old Natchez Trace.”…Welty, 1994: 147. There is a familiarity that is expressed by the nurse is the accumulation of how frequent they, the nurse and old Phoenix, met. These frequent meetings allow the nurse to know old Phoenix the past few years. It seems that some of their frequent meeting is when old Phoenix goes to the room with a golden framed document in the health center building to earn the medicine for her sick grandson. However, the quotation above shows the particular word that refers to Phoenix’s appearance. That is “old”. Thus, the nurse acknowledges Phoenix as an elderly person. By putting the nurse into counts as the author’s effort to strengthen the appearance of Phoenix in readers’ mind, it is clear that Phoenix Jackson has the elderly appearance. Also the author makes the notion of the depiction of Old Phoenix as elderly person remain vivid to readers, as result of repeating those pattern via minor characters. The researcher continues the analysis to extract the dispositional qualities or characteristic of Phoenix Jackson. Those qualities are found by the researcher throughout the story. Also those qualities relate to Phoenix’s determination to takes the journey up. The researcher found it by analyzing personal description, character seen by another, speech, past life and so on, in relevant to the character. a. Brave The first dispositional quality is bravery. To expose this dispositional quality the researcher started with the event which Phoenix reminded herself about her encounter with a no two-headed snake in the past. In this event she showed her bravery. She reminded herself that she met a no two-headed snake and